Although the structure of the above-mentioned '177 patent consistently received positive interest from customers, it did not enjoy commercial success because of the high price resulting from the high cost of manufacture. Instead, the earth moving art stayed with wrought steel cutting edges which were bolted to a single piece support member extending across the mold board of the scraper. These have been less than satisfactory because of the added cost of downtime and maintenance required to remove the bolts, replace the wrought steel cutting edges and rebolting, particularly since the machine must be moved to and from the maintenance shop to perform this work.
The first step toward remedying the high cost of the co-owned patent product and high cost of changing wrought steel cutting edges involved producing the adapters and edges in shorter segments measured across the mold board to a point where the adapters and edges were approximately halved in width. The resultant adapters and edges required additional support as the amount of flexure joints was at least doubled. Hence, the adapters and edges were stabilized into a load sharing mode by the introduction of longitudinally extending, i.e., in a direction forwardly/rearwardly of the scraper, pins which fit between and interlock adjacent to adapters and edges.
The second step involved overcoming premature lock ejection and attendant edge loss associated with the conventional steel pin and rubber plug considering that only one lock per edge/adapter is utilized in the cost reduction improvement. Added safety is also provided as smaller lighter tools can be used.
Other objects and advantages of the invention may be seen in the details of the ensuing specification.